Hey Ozzy B,
I'm getting a TV soon and I'm not too sure what to get as a media streamer for it.
I have a NAS with media on it that I stream off, but I'd love to put media on it as well.
Any advice?
Cheers
Chromecast or Rasberry Pi
Lkoksanga on 12/07/2014 - 11:35
Comments
You need a device (PC/Android Phone) to send content to the Chromecast, wheras the Pi will work standalone..
You can install XMBC onto RPi - but it's still rather finicky. I could not get it to work with my remote so needed a keyboard. Also, you need to buy an USB wifi adapter for it.
But on the plus side if you're ok with SSH, it's pretty useful. I can fire up terminal on my phone or computer to load up a movie after torrent. It can also act as a low power NAS.
I use a raspberry pi with openelec and it works really well.
Though depending on the TV you get, you may be able to just use the TV's built in media player. Most smart tv's will let you hook up a portable hdd with media on it, or connect to a upnp source like your nas and play from there.The chromecast can't store media on itself, so it will have to access the nas and stream from there or some other source.
Unless you have some very specific requirements, I'd say it largely depends on if you want something to tinker with (Raspberry Pi) or something that you can just plugin and forget about (Chromecast).
I have both Raspberry Pi (running Rasplex) and a Chromecast and since buying the Chromecast I haven't turned on the Raspberry Pi once.
I stream from my Plex Media Server, Google TV/Movies and You Tube and all work perfectly through the Chromecast.